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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26506744">If there's no one to blame, blame it on me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miles_2_Go/pseuds/Miles_2_Go'>Miles_2_Go</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I always figured I'd be the one to die alone [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Arkham Asylum, Arkham Asylum Patient Jason Todd, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd-centric, Medical Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:32:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26506744</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miles_2_Go/pseuds/Miles_2_Go</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Todd has been committed to Arkham Asylum. He's supposed to get help there. The Nurse has other plans.<br/>Part of an on-going series, but can be read as a stand-alone. Tropey asylum fun.</p><p>PREQUEL TO "<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25460881">I AM THE MAN WE BOTH COULDN'T STAND</a>".</p><p>---</p><p>When he first arrived in Arkham Asylum it wasn’t far off from what he expected. Long white corridors lined with blank metal doors that led to small white rooms. That was the first thing that really got to him, the lack of color. Everything was shades of white and gray. Gotham was all soot blacks, blood reds, mud browns, chemical greens, neon yellows, pinks, blues. The rogues that were housed here were bright shades of loud and brash on the streets of Gotham, but in Arkham they were dull and muted. And they deserved it, every last one of them, but now Jason was counted amongst their ranks and he could feel the color draining out of him too, leaching out from the bare soles of his feet into the cold white tiles.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Roy Harper &amp; Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I always figured I'd be the one to die alone [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>185</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>If there's no one to blame, blame it on me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm a sucker for cliche/tropey asylum torture and I'm not ashamed of it. Needed a short break from writing the rest of this series, so here's this. Prequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25460881">I am the man we both couldn't stand</a>, but can be read as a stand-alone.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t so bad, at first. Well. Maybe a better way to put it was: It was bad, at first, but it got worse.</p><p>When he first arrived in Arkham Asylum it wasn’t far off from what he expected. Long white corridors lined with blank metal doors that led to small white rooms. That was the first thing that really got to him, the lack of color. Everything was shades of white and gray. Gotham was all soot blacks, blood reds, mud browns, chemical greens, neon yellows, pinks, blues. The rogues that were housed here were bright shades of loud and brash on the streets of Gotham, but in Arkham they were dull and muted. And they deserved it, every last one of them, but now Jason was counted amongst their ranks and he could feel the color draining out of him too, leaching out from the bare soles of his feet into the cold white tiles.</p><p>They weren’t even allowed shoes here, what was that about?</p><p>And white stained. You couldn’t tell him that the inmates didn’t smear their own excrement and fluids on the walls to try and bring some color into their shrunken worlds. Who got to clean those stains? Some poor schmucks that weren’t paid well enough, he’d bet.</p><p>No wonder Arkham had a breakout every week. You’d have to be corrupt to put up working in this place for more than two days.</p><p>So, yeah. At first it was bad. </p><p>Everything was cold, the place rivaled the Iceberg Lounge in terms of temperature, he’d know, he’d been there with the Bat plenty of times.</p><p>His bare feet ached on those stupid freezing tiles.</p><p>The food was gray protein mush. That had to be some kind of human rights violation, not to serve real food, but he had a feeling human rights were something they laughed at around here.</p><p>Speaking of laughing. That’s the thing that sparked the beginning of the decline.</p><p><em> He </em> was down the hall. Jason was laying in his bunk trying to sleep—thank god at least this place didn’t have communal cells, this tiny white room was all his—when he first heard it. That signature cackle. He realized then that he wasn’t as cold as he’d thought before. That sound slithered in from beneath the crack in the door to his cell and wormed its way into his ears and as his blood turned to ice he learned to experience a new level of chilled.</p><p>They didn’t let him have pillows or blankets yet—that was a privilege he would earn when he could prove that he wasn’t a danger to himself—so he had nothing to cover his ears with to muffle the laughter. Instead he turned to face the wall and curled up, crushing his fists against his ears hard enough to bruise.</p><p>He didn’t sleep and apparently neither did the Joker. The laughter didn’t stop until morning.</p><p>He begged them to move him to another block. Anywhere, as long as it was further away from him.</p><p>They told him he was imagining it. The Joker was muzzled, gagged, drugged out of his mind; he couldn’t possibly be laughing.</p><p>But Jason could hear it. Maybe he was crazy like they all said, but he wasn’t hallucinating. He <em> wasn’t. </em></p><p>He wondered if the Joker knew he was here. He wondered if that’s why he was laughing. He wondered if he’d paid them off to lie to Jason about hearing it.</p><p>He’d gone five days without closing his eyes for longer than ten minutes at a time when they finally went through with their threats of drugging him if he didn’t sleep of his own accord. It’s not that he didn’t want to—every muscle in his body ached for sleep, he was tired in his bones; there was sand in his eyes and he kept forgetting what he was saying when he was sitting through his therapy sessions. But the Joker laughed at night, and now even during the day Jason could still hear it. It <em> was </em> all in his head by then, echoing inside of his skull every time he tried to close his eyes.</p><p>So at night they made him take pills and he <em> hated </em> it. Hated putting anything in his body that wasn’t food or water. Hated the idea of addictive chemicals seeping into his bloodstream where his mother’s genes swam, waiting to gobble the drugs up and beg for more until he was lying on a couch in a dirty apartment somewhere with glassy dead eyes choked to death on his own vomit.</p><p>He didn’t want to end up like her. He hated drugs.</p><p>He fought them. Every night. They’d taken to sending three gigantic orderlies in to force the pills down his throat every time now. They always won, but he still got his licks in. Honestly, he looked forward to it. The Pit still howled for blood in those days and he’d take what he could get. It felt good to crunch the occasional nose under his knuckles.</p><p>He had to admit, begrudgingly, that he felt better, marginally, now that his body was allowed to sleep. He woke up groggy and hazy, and the days blurred together a little too much sometimes, but his body didn’t ache from exhaustion and he didn’t dream anymore.</p><p>He could still hear the laughing as he sank into a chemical sleep every night but it was gone when he woke up in the morning now.</p><p>Sufficiently rested, he was actually able to focus more during his therapy sessions and the more he paid attention the more he realized what bullshit they were. Who were these quacks? <em> This </em> was why Gotham was plagued with unstable villains, the doctors assigned with fixing them didn’t know jackshit about jackshit.</p><p>He didn’t tell the quack anything. Didn’t speak a word. Somehow she still knew all about him. Even though he came in as a John Doe, the Bat must have supplied them with a false file. A false file that contained some very real information.</p><p>Daddy was an abusive piece of shit, mommy was a strung-out, mentally-absent addict. He didn’t get enough love so he never developed empathy. He tried to save mommy over and over by killing drug dealers even though she was years dead.</p><p>What a load of shit. More like he was beaten to death while his birth mother watched, dug his way out of his own fucking grave, then got tossed into magic Hell water that cursed him to wander the earth hungry for vengeance so he took it out on bad people.</p><p>It wasn’t <em> his </em> fault that the Pit needed blood. He just made sure that when the urge came he pointed himself at the right people to shoot at. <em> That </em> was sanity. <em> That </em> was <em> strategy. </em> </p><p>He had plenty of fucking empathy. Empathy for the people the bastards he killed had hurt. People who couldn’t be hurt again because he <em> did </em> something about it.</p><p>These assholes didn’t know a <em> thing. </em></p><p>Yeah, Arkham was bad. It was bad, then it got worse with the Joker and with the pills and the bogus therapy, but then it got much worse. Much much worse.</p><p>His shrink—older woman, dark skin, dark eyes, shiny red nails—started getting twitchy during his sessions. Nervous. She developed a habit of tapping her pen on her notepad the second he walked through the door. She hadn’t done that before. She talked fast, and her input after he answered her questions—he did finally start talking eventually in a vain attempt to piss her off by giving obviously bullshit answers—was terse. Her advice was vague. She was phoning it in, like she wanted to get through these sessions and get them over with. Wanted Jason out of her office as quickly as possible.</p><p>Not that he minded <em> that </em> at all. The sooner he didn’t have to pretend to listen to her drone on the better.</p><p>But the change made him nervous. He couldn’t put a finger on why.</p><p>Until one day it clicked. Clicked like the trigger on a detonator.</p><p>“Well,” she said, setting aside her notepad and leaning forward in her chair. “Your obligatory evaluation period is over today and I believe I have decided on the most appropriate treatment course for you.”</p><p>Something about the way she said it made the hairs on the back of Jason’s neck stand on end.</p><p>She pushed a button and the three orderlies he’d become such good friends with were suddenly shoving their way through the door, violence radiating off of them like a bad smell. Jason’s body reacted to the obvious threat before his mind even registered it and he was up and out of his chair, searching desperately for a weapon. Everything in the room was bolted down, but his eyes found the doctor’s pen and he yanked it from her trembling grip as she tried to stumble away from him, her face drawn and pale. He grabbed her wrist and spun her roughly so she was against his chest, his arm across her front, the pen tip pressing into the thin, delicate skin where her pulse beat in her neck. He faced his attackers.</p><p>“Don’t take another fucking step,” he growled.</p><p>One of the orderlies laughed and took a menacing step forward. “You think Black Mask gives a shit about some quack? Go ahead, you’ll save him the money he promised to pay her.”</p><p>Shit. Shit shit shit.</p><p>Jason had taken on a lot of bad men. With guns, knives, batarangs, swords, that one time with the hammer, with his fists. Never had he  had to fight with a pen, but there was a first time for everything. He shoved the doctor aside roughly, not caring if she fell badly and braced himself as the orderly who had spoken lunged.</p><p>The man was <em> huge. </em> They all were. He was reminded of Bane.</p><p>Jason had taken on worse and won.</p><p>When the orderly shoulder-checked him it was like getting tackled by an elephant, but Jason rolled into the blow, using the momentum to flip himself over the man’s shoulder and hook an arm around his neck. He stabbed the pen into the soft spot behind the man’s ear and was rewarded with a satisfying roar of pain.</p><p>He didn’t get to bask in the satisfaction for long. He felt movement behind him as one of the other orderlies moved in on him, and he released his hold on the other man’s neck, sliding down his back and dropping to the ground in a crouch. He ducked under the swing of an arm and lashed out, snapping his bare foot against the second man’s knee. He didn’t get the gratification of a crunch like he might have if he were wearing his boots, but the grunt of discomfort the man gave would have to be enough.</p><p>He came up hard, straightening from his crouch and slamming a fist under the second orderly’s chin. The man stumbled back with another grunt.</p><p>The first orderly had recovered from the shock of the pen to his neck and was coming around for a second go. The third orderly was moving to join the fray as well. Jason bent his knees and shifted his weight to prepare himself to defend against another tackle—</p><p>And the world went white as his muscles locked up. He tasted copper and smelled ozone.</p><p>He didn’t remember hitting the floor, but he knew that must have been where he was by the sensation of the cold tiles on his back. The doctor stood over him, her shaking fingers wrapped tightly around a taser. Jason blinked dumbly down at the wires trailing from tiny barbs latched onto his chest and found himself suddenly feeling a disoriented pang of empathy for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver.</p><p>The doctor took a hesitant step forward. Jason could see the kick coming as she cocked her foot back, but he was powerless to stop it.</p><p>He didn’t feel it when her shoe connected with his head.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>He could barely hear the Joker’s laughs through the roar of the blood in his ears. His head throbbed with every thud of his pounding heart. He couldn’t move. Trapped under rubble from the explosion. His chest felt like it was being crushed and his lungs burned. Dust and smoke was filling his throat and he couldn’t <em> breathe </em> and— </p><p>He forced his sticky eyelids open and tried to sit up. His throbbing head was real, but the dust and smoke was in his mind. He didn’t know where he was, but it was just a room. There was no rubble in sight. No Joker. No bomb. Just dingy, thickly padded walls. He struggled to move but found that he couldn’t pull himself up; his arms were trapped and he rolled over onto his stomach in a panic, finally managing to force himself to his knees without the use of his arms. His head spun as he straightened and his stomach lurched. Dizziness washed over him and he toppled back over onto his side. As he fell, he noticed that the ground, too, was thickly padded, and falling only hurt because the sudden jolt of landing aggravated the pounding in his skull.</p><p>He lay on his side gasping, trying to force himself to focus on the spinning room around him, force himself to get his bearings.</p><p>The room was small—barely larger than a cell, really. The walls, floor, and ceiling all padded with a blotchy, stained white foam, recessed lighting tucked away between the folds of the fabric. A single windowless door was set into the far wall, lined with a padding that was a darker shade of white to distinguish it from its surroundings.</p><p>He’d been in a fight. Let himself underestimate an opponent and paid for it. Tased, knocked unconscious. Head wound? He didn’t smell blood, but the deep nauseating throb suggested the possibility. It was cause for investigation. As soon as he could get his arms free from— </p><p>He squinted down at himself.</p><p>Oh fuck.</p><p>Someone had put him in a straitjacket.</p><p>And wasn’t that just perfectly cliche? Ken Kesey would be proud.</p><p>“Three geese in a flock,” he heard himself muttering, “One flew east, one flew west, and one flew over the cuckoo's nest.” He giggled hysterically to himself and realized distantly that he was definitely concussed.</p><p>The giggles died in his throat as another bout of nausea crested and bile rose. He choked it back down and pressed his face into the soft foam of the floor with a moan, closing his eyes against the throbbing pulse in his head.</p><p>Eventually the door to the room creaked open, the sound hollow and metallic. Hinges that badly needed oiled.</p><p>The Bat stirred in the back of his mind. <em> Pay attention, Jay-lad. Creaking hinges. What does that suggest? </em></p><p>This room must not have been in use often. Every inch of Arkham that he had seen so far had been perfectly well-kept. Sparkling clean, every hinge, knob, lock perfectly maintained.</p><p>So where in Arkham was he?</p><p>Somewhere no one was supposed to find him.</p><p>He’d been there for so long by the time that door opened that the throbbing in his head had crested and his parched throat was full of sand.</p><p>A woman entered the room, her feet silent on the padded floor. Jason blinked up at her. Dainty. Pastel purple scrubs, pale complexion, plain brown hair, plain face with a light smattering of freckles. Heart-shaped lips, kind green eyes. Late twenties, maybe? There was an air of innocence surrounding her, a cherubic energy.</p><p>She crouched next to Jason, slowly, her movements telegraphed like she was handling an unbroken colt that might spook at the slightest provocation. She reached out a slender hand and brushed his hair back from his forehead softly.</p><p>He bared his teeth at her and let out a gravelly growl, but didn’t flinch away. The pain and nausea demanded that he stay still.</p><p>“Hello, Robin,” she said, her gentle voice like the tinkling of bells.</p><p>His veins turned to ice at her words. This time he did flinch away, head-injury be damned. The room spun and his stomach sloshed.</p><p>How did she know that? No one was supposed to know that.</p><p>She smiled as she studied the shock that must have rippled through his features. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, her freckles shifting with the movement of her cheeks. “Surprised?” she asked. Her tone was as casual and pleasant as afternoon tea. “Did you think Black Mask couldn’t figure out who you are? Who you were?” Her heart-shaped lips pursed and a soft <em> tsk </em> breezed over them.</p><p>He lashed out, then. His arms were trapped, but that didn’t stop his legs. He aimed a foot at her knee, like he had with the orderly, but she dodged it skillfully, twirling out of his reach with the grace of a dancer, delightful laughter tinkling. He was too sick and disoriented to try for a follow up kick.</p><p>“Oh, we’re going to have fun,” she giggled. “Roman said I could play with you as long as I want, provided your brain is mush by the time I’m finished. Then when you’re nothing but a vegetable we’re going to strap your drooling shell to the Batsignal for your boss to find.” She tilted her head innocently, green eyes wide and shining. “You’re not on the best of terms with the Bat, right? Do you think he’ll be sad or do you think he’ll be relieved that he doesn’t have to put up with your antics any longer?”</p><p>“F-fuck you,” he croaked, chapped lips splitting with the movement. Talking through the sand in his throat hurt. God, he was so thirsty. The rest of the taunt got trapped in his throat and he let it die.</p><p>She laughed again. “Where are those famous Robin quips I’ve heard so much about? Or was that just your predecessor?” She shrugged. “Oh well. I’m not here for the quips, anyway.” A smile spread across her plump lips. “Just the screams,” she sang.</p><p>The manic twinkle in her eye sent a shiver down his spine. He had a feeling the straitjacket he wore may have been hers once.</p><p>“Well!” She slapped her knee jovially. “I think that’s enough for today. I’ll let you rest a bit before we really get started. It’s no fun if you can’t really struggle. I’ll see you in the morning!” She twirled to face the door and took a step.</p><p>“Wait,” he croaked. He hated himself for stopping her, hated that he was showing weakness, but he was desperate. “W-water.” He didn’t say please. He wasn’t going to beg, he wasn’t there yet.</p><p>“Oh! Of course, how silly of me,” she slapped a palm to her forehead. “I almost forgot! Be right back!”</p><p>She pranced out the door and when she returned it was not with water. Instead, she carried a small black bag. Two of the orderlies he’d fought before flanked her as she entered the room, one of them now walking with a slight limp.</p><p>Jason scrambled backwards, ignoring the vertigo and the nausea. His bare feet slipped on the foam, but he managed to make it far enough that he could shrink back against the wall furthest from the door.</p><p>“Now now,” the woman chirped. “Don’t look so worried! I was a trained nurse, you know, before they tossed me in here and threw away the key. I know what I’m doing, don’t you fret. These nice men are just here to make sure you don’t move while I insert the IV.”</p><p>IV? Oh god. They weren’t going to let him drink.</p><p>He tried to fight. He really did. But he was too dizzy and too restricted with the straitjacket; he was no match for the two orderlies in this condition. When the woman was finished, a long tube ran from just beneath Jason’s collarbone in his chest to a bag of what he hoped was just saline. They couldn’t put the line in his arm for obvious reasons, so it protruded from his chest, an uncomfortable pulsing sting emanating from it. The bag of saline hung from a hook in the center of the low ceiling. No IV pole for him. The room was tiny enough and the tubing long enough that he had free range of motion to move about the room without pulling the line out.</p><p>The woman—the Nurse—gave him a gentle pat on the cheek when she was finished and took a step back. “There! All done! Now don’t you go pulling that out. You won’t like the alternative, trust me.” She sighed, her lips puckering in a pout. “I really should put the catheter in, too, but I’m sleepy. You’ll just have to hold it for now, if you have to go.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll do it in the morning. Sleep tight!” This time he didn’t stop her as she spun to leave. The orderlies followed silently and the door shut with a muffled thud.</p><p>Then the lights clicked off and he was plunged into absolute darkness.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>He couldn’t really be sure, but Jason was fairly confident that he didn’t sleep. He had no way of keeping track of time, so there could have been periods where he lost some, but he didn’t think so. He sat propped against the wall, constantly flexing his muscles to try and loosen the straps that held the straitjacket on. He’d been trained to get out of every type of restraint imaginable, but a lot of his tricks relied on the fact that, as Robin, he’d been small. Now his stupid wide shoulders made wiggling the damn jacket loose impossible. When that failed he’d tried his teeth. He bent and twisted at awkward angles until he found the right one to give him access to a strap, mindful of the IV line in his upper chest. He wanted the damn thing out, but he knew better than to rip it out while he was alone without the use of his arms. There was no telling if the Nurse actually knew what she was doing—the damn thing hurt and he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to—and if she accidentally stuck the thing in his carotid, ripping it out could cause some serious problems very quickly.</p><p>He also hadn’t liked the threat he’d heard in her voice.</p><p>
  <em> You won’t like the alternative, trust me. </em>
</p><p>So he twisted carefully and worked the strap between his teeth.</p><p>By the time the lights flicked back on the next day, he’d made little to no progress. He bit back a hiss as the lights stabbed at his eyes, squinting against them. Luckily, the pain from his concussion had mostly subsided and the stabbing was just the result of sensory deprivation and not the excruciating light-sensitivity that usually came with head injuries.</p><p>He didn’t bother standing up when the door creaked open and the Nurse stepped in. Her face lit up when she saw him like she was seeing an old friend for the first time in years. “Good morning!” she sang. “How are you feeling? Head feeling better?” She stood expectantly, hands on her hips, as though she was waiting for Jason to answer.</p><p>He did not.</p><p>She rolled her eyes fondly and shook her head. “Oh, Robin. Such a stubborn streak. Tsk.” She reached up to flick a finger against the IV bag. “All empty,” she said approvingly, like she was praising him for drinking all of his milk like a big boy. “You must have to go, huh?”</p><p>He did. He really did. His bladder was screaming at him, but fuck if he would ever say anything to her.</p><p>His stomach clenched at what he knew was coming next. </p><p>He wanted to take her down right now. He could. He was bigger, better trained. It would be easy.</p><p>But he wouldn’t make it much further. Not with his arms trapped, not knowing those orderlies probably lurked somewhere outside. He was deep inside Arkham, there were too many obstacles between him and the exit.</p><p>He’d have to play this smart. He needed this damn jacket off before he tried anything.</p><p>“Best get that catheter in, then. It’ll be much easier than trying to coordinate frequent bathroom breaks, you little rascal. You’re much too wild for that. And buckets are too messy.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “No no, this is much more civilized.”</p><p>She tilted her head and studied him with a critical eye. “Did you sleep?” She shook her head. “You didn’t sleep, did you?” She scoffed and crossed her arms. “Rob, you need to take better care of yourself!” She turned her head toward the door. “Some assistance, please!” she called merrily.</p><p>Jason narrowed his eyes as one of the orderlies entered the room. The man stepped towards him menacingly, looming over him. Jason didn’t shrink back this time, raising his chin and sneering defiantly instead.</p><p>“Ready to see if you’re as tough without your friends?” Jason croaked. There were knives in his throat and his mouth was full of ash, but he managed to grind the words out anyway. He knew it was stupid bravado, there was no way he could take the guy with nothing but his feet in such tight quarters. Wouldn’t try right now, anyway. Still, pride dictated that he at least posture.</p><p>The orderly snorted and turned his attention to the Nurse, waiting for orders.</p><p>The Nurse rolled her eyes at the display and reached into the pocket of her purple scrubs.</p><p>Her hand came out gripping a liquid-filled syringe.</p><p>Shit.</p><p>Jason lunged for her the second he saw it, but she was popping the cap off and stabbing the needle into the port just below the fluid bag on his IV line before he could make it across the room, in and out quick as a snake bite.</p><p>As soon as he realized that he was too late, he tucked in his chin and tried to get at the cannula in his chest with his teeth, to rip it out before whatever she’d just injected into the line made it into his bloodstream.</p><p>But that was why she’d called the orderly.</p><p>The man was fast for such a big guy and his meaty hand shot out before Jason’s teeth connected with the cannula, grabbing Jason’s chin and forcing it away. Jason struggled, but the few seconds he’d lost was enough time for the drug to finally snake its way through the tubing and seep into his blood. He felt the numbing burn of it the moment it did. It spread warmly through his body and he felt his heart flutter.</p><p>He forgot why he was fighting and everything suddenly felt very far away. He felt himself list sideways and rough hands caught him. He didn’t remember anything after that.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>The first thing he noticed when he woke up was that his bladder was no longer aching for release.</p><p>The second was the very uncomfortable pressure in a place where uncomfortable pressure was not at all welcome. Eyelids still too heavy to open, he shifted his body and groaned at the awkward tug in his pants.</p><p>“Wakey, wakey,” a familiar voice sang.</p><p>His eyes would have shot open in alarm if his lids weren’t so heavy. Instead he dragged them open laboriously and tried to focus on the face swimming above him. It was too blurry to make out, but he didn’t need to see to know who it was. He tried to speak, tried to spew expletives and threats at the Nurse, but when his dry lips cracked apart he found that his tongue was too thick and too dry to be of any use.</p><p>He noticed, as the cotton in his brain started to clear, that he was no longer in the straitjacket.</p><p>That was good. That was progress. Easier to escape without the jacket.</p><p>But he was strapped to a gurney that had been wheeled into the padded room, his arms out to his sides like a demented crucifixion. His crown of thorns was a thick leather strap across his forehead, preventing him from so much as turning his neck.</p><p>Oh. <em> Not </em> good.</p><p>“Now that everything’s all set, we’re ready to start!” As he blinked, the Nurse’s face became clearer and clearer. A crazed glee shined in her green eyes and Jason could clearly see the insanity that lurked behind the deceptive sparkle that made them seem so soft and kind.</p><p>“Sooo…” The Nurse leaned in, her voice hissing in a dramatic stage-whisper. “I have a confession to make,” she whispered. “I’m kind of winging it, here.” Her voice returned to normal volume and she continued with a giggle. “They don’t teach you how to turn people’s brains to mush in nursing school.” She gestured to a table off to the side of the room that Jason hadn’t noticed since he’d woken up. He could see it if he strained his eyes to the side. The table was covered with a white cloth, several lumps showing through the fabric. “I’m using old movies as my inspiration!” She clapped her hands happily.</p><p>Jason really didn’t like where this was going.</p><p>“N-no—” he croaked, forcing his vocal chords to push air through the desert that was his throat and past his thick tongue, out through cracked lips. The Nurse perked up, focusing on him intently, waiting for him to finish. “No-ot m-much of a mo-movie fan,” he rasped. “More o-of a book guy.”</p><p>The Nurse threw her head back and laughed.</p><p>“This is going to be fun.”</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>Time passed like wind. Sometimes as slow as a lazy frigid breeze on a cold, wet night, and sometimes as quickly and disjointed as gusts in a storm. He didn’t remember everything, but he remembered enough. The cold sticky feeling of the electrodes attached to his head and limbs. That bite of copper in his mouth again, the smell of burning, of lightning—not unlike the smell of a speedster screeching to a burning halt on asphalt.</p><p>He wished there were one here now—the Flash, Kid Flash, anyone. Someone to take him away, to save him. But they wouldn’t save him. It was their kind that put him here.</p><p>No, there was no one to save him. It was just Jason and the Nurse and that table.</p><p>Needles, again like snake bites, in the port on the IV tube, the sting of some new concoction, one after the other after the other, bleeding into his bones and swimming in his brain. Some of them burned, his body slick with sweat and heat; some of them were cold and he shivered so violently and his teeth clacked so hard he was afraid they would crack; some of them just hurt and hurt and hurt and turned his nerves into live wires that sparked with waves of <em> painpainpain </em> at the slightest touch; some of them made his brain feel like it was melting and green monsters lurked at the edge of his vision but he couldn’t turn his head to just <em> look </em> at them to just <em> see </em> them, he could hear them growling and talking in odd stilted words that weren’t words, his ears aching at the sound; some of them made the pain and the monsters go away and let him drift in blissful numbness for a while.</p><p>And he’d always wake up from the numbness alone. Gurney and table gone, straitjacket returned. At first he was able to fight through the cotton in his head, shrug off the lethargy, the hazy disorientation, and try to fight his way out of the jacket again. He tore the cannula out a few times, too desperate now to care about it causing too much damage, but the Nurse must not have screwed up too badly because he bled but he didn’t bleed out. The crisp white jacket gained more rusty stains with each effort.</p><p>The Nurse came back each time and patiently replaced the cannula while the orderlies held him down as he flinched from every one of her soft, gentle touches. She was running out of veins on that side of his chest. Soon she’d have to switch sides.</p><p>It took him much longer than it probably should have to finally start to think that he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this. Each day, after each session in the gurney, his mind became more and more sluggish, his body weaker, the world hazier.</p><p>Eventually he stopped fighting. The orderlies went away one day and didn’t come back again, didn’t need to anymore. He woke up on the gurney and lay limp as the Nurse attached electrodes and introduced him to new levels of electric pain, injected new drugs, poured things down his throat, placed little pills on his tongue and he didn’t struggle, just obeyed. Weak, pliant.</p><p>When the sessions were over he awoke on the floor of the padded room and didn’t try to get out of the jacket anymore.</p><p>He forgot where he was. Who he was.</p><p>But he never forgot the Nurse. Her tinkling voice, soft hands, green eyes. Sometimes he threw up just thinking about her. Clear bile from an empty stomach. </p><p>He shook all the time now, constant shivers wracking his ravaged body.</p><p>He was going to die here. One way or the other, whether it was his body or just his mind. Jason Todd walked through the front doors of Arkham and he was never walking out again.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>But then one day, something different happened.</p><p>The creak of the door. Jason didn’t lift his head at the sound. He wasn’t sure if his eyes were open or not. Just as many blurred, distorted images passed behind his eyelids as before his open eyes so he was never really sure anymore.</p><p>The sound of the door may not have even been real.</p><p>There were hands on him, and they <em> felt </em> real. Rough, callused. Not soft, not the Nurse. Not big and meaty like the orderlies’.</p><p>Not real? Different. Not real.</p><p>He tried to roll over, to turn away from the imaginary hands, but he couldn’t muster the strength.</p><p>Movement, something red swimming in his vision. His actual vision? Eyes open? They felt open.</p><p>There were sounds. More difficult to understand than just the familiar creaking of the door. Words maybe. A voice. Not the Nurse. A new voice? Couldn’t be.</p><p>Familiar, though. Not familiar like the Nurse. Familiar like an echo. Something from before. From a long time ago.</p><p>Some of the words filtered through.</p><p><em> “Jason? Jason Todd? </em> Holy shit.”</p><p>No. No one could know that. The Nurse knew Robin. No one knew Jason. No no no. Had he told them? He talked sometimes, he thought. But he didn’t know what he’d said. Nonononono. Batman was going to be so angry.</p><p>“Shh, Jaybird, I got you. It’s okay.”</p><p>Jaybird. An old word. From before. He was Jaybird?</p><p>
  <em> Nice to meet you, Jaybird. I’m Speedy. Call me Roy. </em>
</p><p>“Wow, Speedy. Haven’t been called that in a long time. I’m gonna get you out of here big guy, okay?”</p><p>Oh. Rescue. Not real then.</p><p>He closed his eyes. Maybe. He thought he did. He didn’t want to deal with this anymore.</p><p>He thought he felt the hands start to lift him, but he was already gone.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>The padded room went away. The white went away. The walls were a dingy brown, peeling paint. The lighting was dim, not the bright fluorescent he’d grown used to. Sunlight from a window.</p><p>A pillow beneath his head.</p><p>Was he allowed to have a pillow now? A soft blanket, too.</p><p>He must have been good. Not a danger anymore, so they let him have them.</p><p>His body was heavy. He thought his arms were free, but he couldn’t lift them enough to tell.</p><p>Sometimes the sunlight was gone, and then he blinked and it was back again. That voice was there sometimes, too. Speedy. The callused hands were back. He flinched from them, but they weren’t cruel. They were gentle, like the Nurse’s, but they weren’t soft like hers. So it was okay. He tried not to flinch, but his body didn’t listen.</p><p>His thoughts were like molasses, but he noticed the thickness starting to run thinner, starting to run more clearly.</p><p>Speedy’s voice was there a lot. The cadence and tone of it comforting. Eventually the words he spoke began to make sense to Jason’s muddled mind.</p><p>“...have fought at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish, one sleeping while the other watched…”</p><p>Jason cracked open an eye to see a man sitting in a beat up recliner pulled up next to his bed. He wore an ugly trucker hat over a mop of red hair. A T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off to expose thin muscular arms, a tattoo on one shoulder. He was leaned back comfortably in the chair, a tattered book in his hands that he was reading aloud from. His voice trailed to a halt when he noticed Jason looking at him.</p><p>“Heya, Jaybird. You with me this time?”</p><p>Jason blinked heavily at the man. The voice was familiar. The red hair. He was years older than the last time Jason had seen him.</p><p>Jason’s voice was wrecked. The raspy whisper that came out barely audible.</p><p>“R-Roy Harper?”</p><p>Roy’s face split into a grin. “That’s me! You’ve been calling me Speedy for weeks, it’s nice to see you more lucid.”</p><p>“W-wee…” <em> Weeks? </em> he wanted to ask, but his dry throat gave up on him.</p><p>“Hang on,” Roy said. He set the book on the bedside table and left the room for a moment. He came back with a cup of ice. He plucked out a small piece and held it up to Jason’s mouth. He parted his dry lips obediently and let Roy drop it onto his tongue.</p><p>He never thought the feeling of moisture trickling down his throat could feel so <em> heavenly. </em></p><p>“You can have real water soon, but we gotta stick to ice first,” Roy said.</p><p>Several pieces of ice later, Jason was able to croak out actual words.</p><p>“Weeks?” he was finally able to ask.</p><p>“Yeah man, I pulled you out of Arkham a couple of weeks ago. They had you pretty messed up. I don’t know what kinds of things they were pumping you full of, but I’ve had to keep you sedated for a while to get you through the withdrawals. Should be over the worst of it now.”</p><p>Jason’s head was spinning. “Were you just <em> reading </em> to me?”</p><p>Roy flushed a little and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, uh. Dinah said it might help you recover. Good for the brain or something. And I remembered you liked to read.” Dinah? He’d told Black Canary about this? Great.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Roy looked flustered, not following. “Why what?”</p><p>“Why did you pull me out of Arkham?” There was anger in his voice. He didn’t mean to put it there.</p><p>Roy’s eyebrows shot up. “Why? Why the hell not? They were <em> torturing </em> you, Jaybird.”</p><p>Jason tried to sit up, but only succeeded in sliding himself up a bit further on his pillow. “I’m a criminal. I didn’t end up in that place by accident.”</p><p>Roy snorted incredulously. “I wouldn’t leave <em> anyone </em> in a situation like that, Jason, criminal or not. I’m not the pinnacle of innocence myself, anyway.”</p><p>He wasn’t lying. Jason had heard things. Still. Did he trust this guy? “Why were you even there?”</p><p>“I was working a case and whatever bullshit Black Mask is up to these days started to interfere with it.” He shrugged. “I know he’s usually a Bat problem, but he’s apparently trying to branch out of Gotham and he was really fucking things up for me, so I started looking into his shit. Overheard one of his lackeys mention that he’d finally got ahold of the Red Hood and was gonna take care of him for good. I’d heard of you. I knew you weren’t really a <em> bad </em> guy, and you took out some really nasty people, so I thought...I don’t know, that I’d see what I could do for you, I guess. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and found <em> Jason fuckin’ Todd. </em> What the hell man? You’re supposed to be dead.”</p><p>Jason sighed and sank back down into the pillow. “It’s a long story.”</p><p>Roy huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I bet.”</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>It took a couple more weeks for Jason to get back to something resembling normal. Normal in that he was out of bed and walking around, and he was able to pull the catheter out on his own (and wasn’t that one of the most painful things he’d ever experience short of being literally beaten to death). </p><p>Whatever they’d done to him had left him twitchier than usual. Sometimes the edges of his vision flickered and he’d turn to find nothing there. </p><p>The nightmares were worse than before Arkham. Much worse.</p><p>White rooms. Soft hands. Green eyes.</p><p>He didn’t ask Roy what had happened to the Nurse. Didn’t want to know. His brain wasn’t <em> mush </em> like she’d wanted. That’s all he really cared about.</p><p>Thanks to Roy.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p><em> “No, </em> Roy. Look...thank you. For everything. If you hadn’t pulled me out of there...But I told you, I don’t need friends, and I don’t need a partner.”</p><p>He couldn’t rely on a partner. Not again. They were never there when you really needed them, when it really counted.</p><p>Not again. Never again.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p>Jason hunched forward, staring at the laptop screen. Kory leaned into his back, reading over his shoulder. “Jason?” she asked.</p><p><em> AMERICAN PUT TO DEATH IN QURAC, </em> the headline read. <em> ROY HARPER TO BE EXECUTED BY INTERIM QURAC GOVERNMENT. </em></p><p>Jason sighed and rubbed at his face.</p><p>He didn’t need friends. He <em> didn’t. </em> But now Kory had found him. Saved his broken butt. People seemed to keep saving him.</p><p>Maybe…</p><p>Maybe having friends wouldn’t be so bad.</p><p>“Kory—are you up for a road trip?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The excerpt Roy was reading is from The Last of the Mohicans. Fic title is a Matt Maeson lyric.</p><p>Please don't forget to leave a comment if you enjoyed this fic! :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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